This is so exciting I can barely breathe. A tremendous amount of background programming went into the creation of this feature and I'm pleased to introduce the launch of our Local Reports feature.
For each plant in the database, you can now enter a report on how well it performed for you. You will give it a location (and you can save the location to be your default, so that you don't have to re-enter it each time), the year that pertains to the report, sunlight exposure, soil conditions, comments, etc.
Once you enter the report, it will show up on the plants database "view page" for that plant. People will then see that it grew in your area, along with your opinion of how well it performed (if you entered that.) They can then click to view the full report and see the nitty gritty details.
Pretty cool, eh? Well, there's more!!
I have created this so that I can add extra local report options on a plant-by-plant basis. So if, for example, you go to add a report about a daylily, then you are given additional options to enter in (bud and branching counts, fragrance, etc.)
In the future, we can enhance each custom database with its own custom local report options. We could add "Taste" to vegetables, for example, or "Days to Harvest" for tomatoes. Slug susceptibility for hostas, etc. The possibilities here are pretty limitless.
If you grow a plant for a number of years, you may want to also issue multiple reports for each year you grew it. Some years are wet and other are dry, and the plant may perform differently. All of that is easily notated in the local report field.
I know you want to see how this works so go open up any plant in the database, and scroll to the bottom and click on "File a local report" and you'll be on your way.
If you'd like to see an existing report in action, I posted one to
Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum 'Kellogg's Breakfast')
Now, this was a huge update of the code. I completely altered the way data in our database is stored today and, although I tested it very thoroughly, there may be unforeseen problems. If you see any problems in the database, please let me know!!
